


The Talk

by Anxiety_Baker02



Series: Small World + Cut Scenes [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hale Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Kate Argent Warning, She’s not in this just talked about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anxiety_Baker02/pseuds/Anxiety_Baker02
Summary: This is the missing scene where Derek tells Mary what happened in his life, mostly about The Fire. There are tears and family feels, but also fluff! Probably won’t make sense unless you read It’s a Small World After All (Shut Up, Stiles), but I’m not your mother (Or father or whoever tells you what to do) so it’s up to you!“  “It was my fault,” Derek cut in softly, and he was curled into himself, not looking at anyone, like he expected Mary to reject him. Stiles’ heart broke for him all over again.Mary was staring at Derek with a furrowed brow, her mouth slightly agape. Stiles spoke before she could, though.“Where’s the damn spray bottle when you need it? I thought we broke you of your nasty habit of self-blame.”  ”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Small World + Cut Scenes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744759
Comments: 9
Kudos: 214





	The Talk

When Stiles got upstairs, Mary and Rhys were sitting on the edge of Stiles’ old bed with the playpen set up for Cody. Derek was sitting in the armchair that he had dragged from the corner to sit across from them, and he had pulled the sheriff’s office chair right next to it. 

Stiles handed Mary her tea, sheepishly followed by a jar of honey and a few sugar packets. “I, uh, didn’t know if you liked anything in it,” he explained. 

Mary smiled tentatively. “Thank you, Stiles.”

Stiles smiled back and plopped into the chair next to Derek, handing the werewolf his own mug of tea even though he hadn’t asked for it. He hadn’t needed to.

“Made just the way you like it, Sourwolf,” Stiles chirped. 

Derek smiled thankfully at Stiles, snatching his hand before he could move and squeezing it once. Stiles squeezed back, then Derek released his hand and they turned to face Mary and Rhys. 

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, none of them quite knowing where to start, until Mary broke it.

“I was a coward,” she blurted. “I was a coward, Derek, and I’m so sorry.”

Rhys made a noise of protest and took her hand in his; she shot him a look that was half grateful and half resigned. Stiles knew that look- he got it from Derek every time Stiles insisted that something wasn’t his fault. 

Derek frowned and opened his mouth but Mary held up her hand. She shut her eyes briefly.

“I got home after the fire was out, but either before you or after you left, I guess. I snuck past the police and firefighters and got inside. I smelled the mountain ash and wolfsbane and figured out that it was hunters, but then I saw our family. I saw what was left of them and I was so afraid that I just...ran, Derek. I _ran_ , and I didn’t stop until I was so far that the hunters couldn’t find me. I never came back, not until now, I put it out of my mind and forced myself to move on; to keep living when the rest of you couldn’t.”

Stiles heard Derek make a cut-off whining sound in the back of his throat. “That- Laura,” he choked out. “That’s exactly what she used to say. We went to New York, lived in Uncle Logan’s old apartment. She said that- that since you- _they_ were gone we had to live for them.” 

Mary’s lips pulled into a quaking smile, but more tears poured down her cheeks. “What did you expect, Der? We were Irish twins, as good as _actual_ twins.”

“You two were so close,” Derek agreed in a whisper. “Mom used to say you shared one brain.”

“And _you_ used to say that we shared one brain _cell.”_

Derek laughed wetly. “Yeah, but you were always smarter than me. Braver, too.”

Mary’s smile faded. “Maybe not. You came back, you didn’t hide.”

“I came back ten years ago, Mary, but I only stopped hiding five years after that. Maybe more. The two aren’t mutually exclusive; I tried to get out of Beacon Hills so many times before staying for good.”

“I should have waited,” Mary said miserably. If I had waited-”

“If you had waited,” Derek interrupted. “You wouldn’t have Rhys. You wouldn’t have Cody. I might not have S- some of what I have now.”

“Derek, I don’t even know what happened to our family!” Mary exclaimed. “I left before I could find out, I don’t know who started the fire, if they got away with it, how they were trapped in the house-”

“It was my fault,” Derek cut in softly, and he was curled into himself, not looking at anyone, like he expected Mary to reject him. Stiles’ heart broke for him all over again.

Mary was staring at Derek with a furrowed brow, her mouth slightly agape. Stiles spoke before she could, though.

“Where’s the damn spray bottle when you need it? I thought we broke you of your nasty habit of self-blame.”

Derek lifted his gaze and glared at him, but the pain in his eyes marred the severity of it. “Not the time for jokes, Stiles.”

“Good, because I’m sure as hell not joking,” Stiles retorted. “Der, come on. You know full well that you are not to blame, and I’m not going to sit here and let your subconscious need to not let yourself have good things sabotage your relationship with your sister. Your _sister,_ Derek, who’s alive and here now. You know that every time you take the blame she succeeds a little more in breaking you down, no matter how dead she is.”

Stiles met Derek’s wavering glare with a challenging look of his own, and it took all of six seconds for Derek to drop his gaze. “Sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Stiles said firmly. “The guilt isn’t your fault either.”

Derek looked at him with the same expression that Mary had shot Rhys before his lips quirked up in a small, sad smile.

“Okay, hang on, how did you do that?” Rhys demanded. “Mary never listens to me when I say she shouldn’t feel guilty.

Stiles grinned at him. “Tough love, dude. Works wonders- I actually had a spray bottle for Derek and I sprayed him whenever he said something self-deprecating. After six months, he was down to one comment every few weeks instead of at least two a day. The dog trainers have the right idea.”

“I hate you,” Derek muttered. “Thought we agreed to stop the dog jokes.”

“Ugh, Rhys is just as bad,” Mary commiserated, and the two siblings shared an exasperated smile while the cousins high-fived.

The distraction only lasted for a minute before Mary sobered again. “Derek...what happened?”

Derek inhaled sharply, looking at Stiles anxiously. Stiles smiled in support, and Derek squared his shoulders and turned back to Mary, but not before his hand snaked over to Stiles’ chair. Stiles took it and squeezed reassuringly. 

“Kate Argent,” he started, and Mary gasped softly, apparently recognizing the name. “She approached me in April, two months after…”

“Paige,” Mary said quietly, and Derek nodded. 

“You remember the hardware store I worked in? Well, she started coming in three times a week, if not more. One day, I asked her why she was coming in so often, and she said that she liked to see me. One thing led to another and...well, I had been so flattered that an older woman was into me- god, she was nine years older- and so lonely and angry over Paige that she seduced me. I- she told me that she loved me and I believed her. I thought that I loved her too; obviously I didn’t. I didn’t even know what love was, I was a stupid sixteen-year-old and I didn’t even know her last name. We snuck around, going to motels and empty closets, and I thought it was romantic- a forbidden love,” he said derisively. He paused, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut at the painful memories. Stiles ached for him.

“After a month she started asking questions, like if we had any secret passages, or hideouts; she said she had never met someone who lived in such a big house. She usually asked when-”

Derek cut off, his ears turning red. Stiles squeezed his hand again. He knew the basics of this story, more than anyone else alive, but he had never heard Derek tell it with such detail; well, he had heard it with detail, but _other_ details, like the actual shit Kate did to him. 

“You know. I was...distracted when she asked, so I answered her questions. But after awhile she became less interested in _me_ and more interested in my answers. She started snapping at me, pushing me into things I wasn’t ready for, but I didn’t want to tell anyone- she had told me if I said anything she’d end up in jail, and at the time that was the worst thing I could think of. But one day, she asked something about the full moon. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it hit me that night as everyone was getting ready to go into the basement for the moon. I had never, _ever_ said anything about us being werewolves. I freaked out, but I was too scared to tell Mom.” 

He let out a bitter sigh. 

“I grabbed Laura and told her that I needed to talk to her, and she snuck us out of the house while everyone was getting ready for the moon. We drove around while I told her everything. We had only been gone for fifteen minutes before the firetrucks started speeding past us, but we ignored them. She asked me questions, like what did Kate look like, what did she smell like. I remember how she gasped as she figured it out, the way she whipped the car around and nearly crashed in her hurry to get back home. As soon as she told me that Kate was an Argent I realized that those firetrucks had been for our house, but we were almost an hour out of town by that point. I remember that I was crying in the passenger seat, and Laura just kept saying _it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”_

A tear rolled down his cheek and all Stiles could do was grip his hand. 

“At some point I looked at Laura and saw her start to cry. She stopped talking, and I remember her just flooring it; she told me later that’s when she felt the alpha power come to her. When we got there she nearly ran over the chief firefighter. She barely parked the car, left it running, and we both jumped out. I think someone tried to stop us, but we just ran for the house. Laura stopped first, grabbing me before I could go inside, because it was still burning; it must have been before you got there, then.”

Mary nodded, and her whole body was quaking with silent sobs. Rhys had her gathered in his arms. 

“I screamed. I just kept screaming; I yelled and cried and fought, but Laura held me back. I remember her crying, just sobbing as she held me. I kept fighting until she turned me around and shook me so hard that I almost fell over. She yelled that she couldn’t lose me too, and then her eyes flashed red and I realized that it was too late. I tried to run, then, as far as I could, but Laura had a grip on my arm and didn’t let me go. It’s- I don’t remember much after that. We went to the police station and they took our statements, told us who was gone and who had lived- and I’ll explain that later, because it’s so complicated, Mary. But the only thing I remember clearly was that we were sitting on the bench in the sheriff’s station, and Laura turned to me suddenly, grabbed me by the arm, and said _don’t you dare blame yourself for this,_ like she could hear what I was thinking. _Derek, this isn’t on you. You didn’t do this, it isn’t your fault, no matter what you think._ I never answered her, because she was wrong; Kate burned our family alive because I told her our weaknesses without meaning to. Our family is dead because I couldn’t keep it in my pants.”

By the time Derek finished his voice was hoarse and he was shaking, both from the agonizing memories and the fear of what Mary would say, Stiles knew. Stiles was crying too; he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t bring himself to scold Derek for his self blame again; the man was too vulnerable. He wanted to take his pain away, to go back in time and just fucking murder Kate before she could even look at Derek. The older man had gone back to looking at the floor, and Stiles looked at Mary. She was staring at Derek like she had never seen him before, fury in her eyes, and Stiles was completely ready to jump to his defense- physically and vocally, when Rhys shook his head at him. 

Stiles narrowed his eyes at him, because if Rhys thought that Derek was at fault then Stiles didn’t care if he was his favorite cousin, he was going to kick his-

Rhys shook his head again, and this time Stiles realized that the other man was crying too. He smiled reassuringly, then gestured towards Derek’s half-drunken tea. Stiles hesitated for only a moment before gently taking it away from Derek.

Finally, Mary spoke. “I guess you were right.”

Derek flinched, and Stiles’ anger flared, but Mary kept talking before he could start yelling. 

“Laura and I _are_ smarter than you.” 

Derek looked up sharply, and Stiles slumped in relief.

“Stiles too, apparently,” Mary continued. “Derek, what that _bitch-”_ she spat the word, “did to our family, what she did to you, was not your fault. It sounds like you’ve heard this a lot of times from Stiles, and I’m sure from Laura, but Derek, you were manipulated and taken advantage of and- and _raped_ , and don’t say it wasn’t that because I am a goddamn police officer and I have seen so many cases- not the point. My point is that you were an innocent kid who had just gone through an immense trauma, and she must have known that, because hunters do their research. You were a target, Derek, a victim, just as much as the rest of our family was. And I know that you can tell how fucking pissed I am, but you have to know that I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at _her._ I want to find her and rip her limb from limb until she can’t scream anymore. I want her dead. Is she dead?”

Derek was clearly too emotional to answer, so Stiles stepped up. “Very, very dead. Never coming back type dead, because she pulled that stunt before. I personally tracked her down and, well. When our pack was done with her, there was hardly enough to bury.”

Mary’s eyes glinted. “Good,” she growled, and for the first time Stiles saw her wolf shining through. Her eyes flashed gold, but she blinked a few times and then her eyes were back to green and brimming with more tears. “Oh, Derek.”

And Stiles realized why Rhys had him take Derek’s tea. 

Mary lunged forward, flinging her arms around Derek, forcing Derek to either hug her back or be suffocated. Stiles watched all of the tension drain from Derek’s muscles as his sister hugged him. She pulled back slightly, but just rested her forehead on his temple and carded her hand through his hair. 

Stiles watched them and breathed a silent sigh of relief. 

**Author's Note:**

> I might write one about Mary meeting Peter, but I have no idea when/if that will happen. The next installment is a little scene after Stiles and Derek go to bed that first night... *wink* (I am terrible at smut so i don’t know if I’ll actually build up the courage to post it even though it’s pretty tame lmao)
> 
> Love you guys!


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